A historic moment was about to take place on election night at campaign headquarters, but not at the rallies of Israel’s leading parties. While the Zionist Camp headed by Issac Herzog and Likud with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were on pins and needles in the final hours Tuesday night, up in the northern city of Nazareth in a rented hall the Joint Arab List, a coalition of four parties running on one ticket for the first time, were already celebrating well before polls closed.

An assistant for Ayman Odeh, head of the Arab list, pulled me aside and said with a grin, “we got 14 seats.” It was 8 pm, there were still two hours before precincts shut. Yet, the 14-seat estimate announced on Israeli television meant that the Arab list had met its goal to become the third largest political party in the country. The two-decade Arab boycott of elections was over.